


Hey, You're Beautiful.

by QueenoftheHobbits



Series: Soft Thighs Series [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, but then fluff, overweight reader, plus size reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:39:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheHobbits/pseuds/QueenoftheHobbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky reminds you that you look beautiful before you’re forced to go to Tony’s Gala. You feel out of place in your dress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey, You're Beautiful.

You were the type of girl who covered herself up in baggy t-shirts and jeans, who never wore dresses or showed your legs, who avoided close fitting outfits...because you worried about what people might think. You worried that it’d be just like being a kid and teenager again, being picked on for your round stomach, or the rolls at your side, or your hips, or your arms. The easiest way to avoid scrutiny was to avoid showing what you were self-conscious of, the parts the people had criticised throughout your life. Because you had been worn down and worn down and worn down over years and years. 

It was why you had spent the week attempting to work your way out of Tony’s Gala, knowing you would be wearing something fancy, elegant, and no doubt tight fitting enough to show everything, knowing you’d be surrounded by tall, thin women with beautiful features and elegant steps like Wanda, like Natasha, knowing that people would watch and wonder why a fat cow like you would be wearing that, why you would even be there in the first place...

But nothing could get you out of the Gala, Tony would drag you there himself if he had to. You had to make an appearance, your excuses of nothing to wear went unnoticed, a package left on your bed confirming that you now had a dress. A dress of Tony’s picking because he was almost blackmailing you into going with it, that he’d brought you something no doubt expensive (and probably with Pepper’s help) so now you had to go. Even if you didn’t want to. 

And you stood there. Stood there in front of your mirror, staring at the dress you wore, staring at the way the silky fabric clung to your hips, and showed the curvature of your waist, the way it showed everything that you disliked from your arms to your hips...and you hated it because you knew you were supposed to feel happy, to feel good, to look at yourself and feel beautiful. But you didn’t, you couldn’t stop the tears collecting in your eyes, blurring your reflection, blurring your shapes into what you thought of as a lump. You knew you were harsh on yourself, but you couldn’t help it. It was all those niggling comments from years and years of being the big girl, words and looks and even grabbing that sat in your head and repeated like a record stuck on loop. Over, and over, and over again. 

You tried to see the good points, turning this way and that way, but it didn’t help, it didn’t make you feel any more comfortable in the silky dress, and you found yourself curling up in the centre of your bed instead, crying. Feeling the heaviest weight on your shoulder, ignoring the knock that sounded from your door, ignoring everything, because you couldn’t go to the Gala. You couldn’t. You couldn’t face all those people like this. You couldn’t and you didn’t want to.

And then the bed dipped besides you with a heavy weight, and hands, one warm and one cool, pulled your own from where they were covering your face and you looked up with watery eyes at who had found you. Bucky stared back at you, silent as ever, a furrow in his brow and a set to his jaw as his eyes searched yours for something, but only came up with pain. Only came up with the glisten of your eyes and the tremble in your fingers. And it hurt. 

“Did someone hurt you?” You normally would have been surprised at the talking, that Bucky was talking to you. He wasn’t one for talking any more, only doing it when he felt it absolutely necessary or when Sam drew him out to banter about with the soldier. But you couldn’t think of that, not then, not when you felt like falling apart. 

You shook your head, looking away from him, pulling your hands away to pick at the threads of your blankets, holding in a quiver of your lip and the urge to start sobbing again. Because Bucky couldn’t see you like this, he was so handsome and good, and he couldn’t see you like this...but he did and he had. 

“Y/N...What’s wrong? Do you not want to go to the Gala?” You shook your head at him, sniffling a hand coming up to rub at your eyes probably making the blotching of your face worse in the process. “ _Why_ don’t you want to go to the Gala?” Something inside you sparked and you scrambled off the bed, the tears falling again, anger welling inside you. Anger at yourself. Anger at this dress. Anger at how you looked. Anger at people. 

“Look at me, James! I’m ugly! I look like someone tried to stuff a whale in a dress! I can’t go. I can’t...I can’t stand next to beautiful people and pretend that I am too...I can’t.” Because you weren’t, you couldn’t. It’d be like Prom all over again. The secret sniggers, the looks, the whispers. The way people always talked about you behind your back, you couldn’t go through the pain of feeling good to only be brought back down. To be dragged down kicking and screaming. 

“You don’t look ugly. You don’t.” The sadness that fell from those blue eyes almost physically knocked you back, he looked so hurt. So sad because he couldn’t understand how you thought that. How you couldn’t see how beautiful you were. How amazing. You scoffed at him, the anger falling away to hurt again, your arms limp at your side, “You’re beautiful.” 

Bucky took a step closer to you, his hands reaching out to grip at your shoulders, the skin coming in contact with his and the metal of his arm, his hands moving down to smooth over the skin of your arms, “You look beautiful and if anyone says any different they’ll be dealing with me.” You looked up at him, the tears had stopped again, dripping off your chin and hitting the floor. You searched those blue eyes, looking, trying to find something, trying to figure out what James Barnes was really thinking.

The hands moved, cupping the edges of your jaw, his own was tense, his eyes boring into you, “You’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful. You look beautiful.” There was such sincerity and intensity in his eyes that you almost stepped back. “I mean it.”

“I know...” You felt a little smile attempting to curl at the corner of your lips, pulling away from him and turning back to the mirror to try and look with new eyes. And you saw it. You saw the way the curve of your hip could be beautiful maybe, not horrible, the way the dress showed the dip in your waist, however slight, the way you looked taller and more graceful. And while it wasn’t perfect, while there were still the flaws there you saw what he saw, and you felt a confidence you hadn’t in a while well up in you. A determination that filled you.

“I’m beautiful.” You said it with conviction, your eyes following Bucky in the mirror as he moved up behind you, his hands reaching out to hold your shoulders again, before, much to your surprise, placing a kiss on your cheek. The starting of his beard scratched at your skin, and you felt heat rising up your neck, and your eyebrows raise...because he’d never done that before.

“Yes, you are.” You turned around, hands coming up to smooth over the lapels of the suit jacket you were sure Steve had forced him into. “Wait outside? I need to...finish up.” He nodded, silent again, moving towards the door, “and Bucky-” he stopped, a slight turn of his head over his shoulder letting you know he was listening, “Thank you.” and he kept walking, the door closing lightly behind him. 

You stared at the door for second, “Okay, Y/N, we can do this...let’s get ready.” Your little pep talk didn’t do much, but you were already feeling more determined, better. Because Bucky was right you were beautiful, and if people didn’t think so? So what? Why should you sacrifice your enjoyment because they’re uncomfortable? You shouldn’t. You almost thanked all the deities in that moment for James Barnes, not that you wished for him to have gone through what he had...but if he hadn’t who else was going to make you understand, make you realise that you were wrong on this count? That you were looking at yourself from the wrong perspective? That you were the artist criticising his work for the flaws, rather than the viewer admiring it for the same faults.

You smoothed out the fabric of the dress, slipped your feet into a pair of rather conservative heels, and sat at your table making the puffiness of your eyes less apparent, doing your hair, dressing yourself to the nines...and it felt good. It felt good to do this, to let loose, to dress differently, to empower yourself in this way. To take back what little opportunity insecurity had taken from you over the years. 

You walked on somewhat wobbly heels to the door, unused to the shoes, not helped by the rather fluffy carpet. You opened the door surprised to find Bucky still there, leaning against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets. He looked up once you left the room, a little smile crawling onto his lips...something you didn’t see often, before he walked towards you offering you an arm. You saw a spark of what you were sure was Bucky before all this, before he’d been taken from Steve. 

“You look beautiful.” 

“So...So do you?” You tried to ignore the amused smirk that upturned the corner of his mouth at your awkwardness as the two of you walked, you using Bucky’s arm to stabilise you and make you walk a little straighter.

You weren’t prepared for the stares and the silence the moment the two of you walked through the doors to the massive hall that Tony had set up for the event. It was almost dead silent, all eyes looking over at the two of you, and then nothing. The talking started up again and no one cared and relief filled you because that was it wasn’t it? No one that mattered was bothered by your looks, no one that cared thought anything bad, you were just another girl in a pretty dress hanging off a man’s arm. There wasn’t anything to look at.

The knowing look Bucky sent you, had you realising that this man was indeed a godsend, he knew more about this then you did and he’d been controlled by an evil organisation for 70 years. 

“I told you, you look beautiful.” 


End file.
